Court Puts The Lid On Nosy Questionnaires
Many parents assume that the tests given to their children in public school are only for educational purposes. To the contrary, schools increasingly demand that students answer nosy questions unrelated to academics. 12-26-01

What's Hiding Behind The Student Visa Scan
A funny thing happened on the way to Senator Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) proposal to take a six-month time-out on issuing visas to foreign students in order to defend Americans from fraud and potential terrorists. She was backed into a corner by an unusual phalanx of well-dressed lobbyists on the warpath. 12-12-01

Fast Track Is Unconstitutional
Where are all those strict-constructionist Republicans who've been
complaining about activist judges who don't respect the fact that the
U.S. Constitution gives "all legislative powers" to the Congress?
Don't those Republicans realize that it is just as unconstitutional to
transfer legislative powers to the executive branch? 12-05-01

Is it Assimilation or Invasion?
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, support for the United States
has poured in from around the world, but the response from Mexico has
been decidedly lukewarm. A Gallup poll reported that 78 percent of
Mexicans oppose contributing troops to a multinational coalition, and
we have seen no indication that Mexico will modify its oil policy of
acting like a member of OPEC. 11-28-01

Why The Democrats Won
"I am ruling out a tax increase," the new Governor of debt-ridden
New Jersey declared the day after his election. He said he is
embarking on "an agonizing reappraisal of what government should do,
and perhaps more importantly, what government ought not be doing." 11-21-01

Finding Terrorists Inside The United States
The Bush Administration's announcements that it will delay indefinitely the admission of refugees from terrorist countries, and that it will find and deport foreigners who are illegally in the United States because their visa terms have expired, are two moves in the right direction. The question remains, however, why did it take seven weeks to initiate such obvious safety measures? 11-14-01

Disease Attacks On Americans
The anthrax scare has made Americans suddenly and acutely very
disease conscious. Until a few weeks ago, most Americans had never
heard of anthrax, and worries about smallpox had been abandoned years
ago. 11-07-01

Second Amendment Rights In Reality and In Court
If the hijackers had used guns for their crimes on 9/11, we would
surely now be caught up in a frenzy of demands that this "lesson" calls
for tough gun-control legislation. But they didn't use any firearms,
just easily purchased box-cutters. 10-31-01

Triad Response to Terrorism
As President Bush has warned us, this is a new kind of war.
He is doing a good job of the military and diplomatic legs of the
U.S. response to terrorism, but it's up to citizens to insist
that the response on the homeland front be effective and
constitutional. 10-24-01

MSAs Are The Solution
The Patients' Bill of Rights has moved to the back burner on
Capitol Hill because of priorities such as closing our wide-open
borders and stopping visa approvals to terrorists. The Senate and
House have passed different versions of the bill, which have yet to be
resolved, but only the House bill (H.R. 2563) contains a provision that
offers real hope to reform our health care system. 10-17-01

ID Card: The Password to the Police State The current attempt to inflict Americans with the burden of having
to carry a national ID card did not begin on 9-11 and, indeed, is
unrelated to it. The attack on the World Trade Center is just a
convenient excuse to promote this thoroughly un-American idea. 10-10-01

Constitutional Rights Should Trump Terrorism RegsAfter the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Left moved quickly to use it as an excuse to exact draconian federal gun control. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed by showing that no new gun control laws would have been the slightest deterrent to that tragedy. 10-03-01

Defending Our Planes And CitiesThe act of war that was committed against America on 9-11 has changed the way we look at many things. I guess we won't hear much now from the conspiracy-debunkers; it had to be a criminal conspiracy that planned and carried out the simultaneous hijacking of four airliners. 9-26-01

UN Treaty On The ChildThe Bush Administration properly walked out of the ridiculous United Nations Conference on Racism in South Africa because we didn't care to be insulted (or have our friends insulted) by Fidel Castro and his allies. The Administration should do likewise about the UN Conference on Children in New York starting September 19. 9-19-01(The conference has been postponed because of the September 11 terrorist attack.)

Why Education Reform Won't Help SchoolchildrenA teacher re-certification system, under which public school teachers take special "development" courses to boost their knowledge and teaching skills, was started a year ago in Illinois. It is part of a plan that began six years ago amid the national push to reform education. 9-12-01

Follow The Money On VaccinesIt isn't often that a Governor vetoes a bill that was passed unanimously by both Houses of the State Legislature. It reminds us of the old saying of the mother, watching her son drill for the first time with the troops: "Everybody's out of step except my son Jim." 9-05-01

Survival Message For College Students Students starting college this fall need survival instructions to enable them to understand the jargon and prepare for the challenge of strange encounters. 8-29-01

Amnesty Puts Profound Questions on the TablePerhaps one good result of President George W. Bush's toying with the unpopular notion of granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens is that Americans are starting to have a frank debate about the constitutional, cultural, social, language, moral, and economic questions involved. 8-22-01

Is President Bush Being Outfoxed?When demonstrators displayed anti-American signs against our President while traveling to Europe last month, we could brush it off as a bunch of street radicals getting their kicks. But it is an insult when a foreign head of state comes to the heart of the United States and attacks our laws while his audience waves foreign flags. 8-15-01

Republicans Are Getting Caught In A Traffic JamThose who have unkindly called the Republican Party the Stupid Party have new evidence for their opinion. President Bush and 30 Republican Senators are trying to crowd our highways with Mexican trucks that are not required to meet the same safety, weight, licensing and insurance standards required of American trucks. 8-08-01

Humans vs. Fish at Klamath FallsAre you for humans or for suckerfish? That's the issue in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where armed U.S. federal marshals are guarding the irrigation canal gates to keep the river from flowing to 1,400 farms that will soon be out of business if they don't get water. 8-01-01

The Policy Behind The Controversy You've got to hand it to the National Education Association. The NEA's press people and spin artists know how to manipulate the news. 7-25-01

Campaign To Tune Out Channel One A broad coalition of companies, organizations and activists, ranging from Focus on the Family to Ralph Nader, have kicked off a campaign to stop Primedia's Channel One from exploiting school children for commercial gain. Channel One is the in-school television program with a daily captive audience of about eight million children in 12,000 schools, broadcasting 10 minutes of "news," music and filler, plus two minutes of advertising for a variety of products and services aimed at youngsters. 7-18-01

The Costs Of NAFTA Are Driving HomeState politicians and federal judges are going the limit to protect us all from the horrendous highway hazards of talking on cell phones and not wearing seat belts. How about manifesting an equal enthusiasm to protect us against an invasion of 4.5 million large trucks that have not passed U.S. safety inspections? 7-11-01

Kyoto = Kick the United StatesThe anti-Bush brigade in the United States and abroad has coalesced around the Kyoto Protocol, thinking it is a neat hammer with which to hit our President. They are bragging that his strong stand against this fraudulent treaty is the principal factor in his slight drop in the polls, which the media were glad to feature as front-page news. 7-04-01

Grading Bush On His European TripPresident Bush deserves an "A" from Americans for his five-nation European tour because he stood firm for the U.S. positions on missile defense, the Kyoto Protocol, capital punishment, and non-involvement in expanded military engagements. For that, he had to endure lecturing by a finger-pointing King Juan Carlos of Spain and Swedish street demonstrators shouting "Toxic Texan, Go Home." 6-27-01

They Call It "The Democracy Predicament"They call it "the democracy predicament." The problem is that the politicians who prattle incessantly about democracy are not willing to accept the voters' democratic decisions. 6-20-01

Surprise Assault On Gun OwnershipThe gun-control lobby is on the warpath in a most surprising venue. A group called Doctors Against Handgun Injury is calling on doctors, including psychiatrists, to ask their patients nosy questions about their gun ownership. 6-06-01

United Nations Attack On Gun OwnershipThe attempt this year to reprise last year's Million Mom March was a dud, attracting only about 200 demonstrators, and the Democrats' political gurus are whining about how Al Gore's pro-gun-control stance cost him votes last year in crucial states. So the anti-gun activists have moved to a less democratic venue: the United Nations. 5-30-01

Free Trade Is An Economic, Not A Moral, IssueMost conservatives are so happy that we now have a President who has restored dignity to the White House. We are pleased that he brings a moral dimension to his actions and isn't squeamish about acknowledging his religious faith. 5-23-01

Guess What's Going On In School!While the education debate in Congress revolves around standards, testing, accountability and spending, 3,000 miles away on the Left Coast, very different factors have leapt to center stage. 5-16-01

The Importance Of The English LanguageThe Supreme Court's decision in the seatbelt/handcuff case grabbed the headlines, but the ruling the same day about Alabama's English-only law was every bit as important. The high Court barred a private right of action to challenge this first-to-reach-the-Court of the 25 state laws designating English as the state's official language. 5-09-01

Daycare Bombshell Hits The "Village"The advocates of "it take a village to raise a child" are having a rough month. They are scurrying around trying to come up with arguments to refute the new study showing that children who spend most of their time in daycare are three times as likely to exhibit behavior problems in kindergarten as those who are cared for primarily by their mothers. 5-02-01

Lessons Of The China IncidentThe incident in the China sea has made it clear to those who did not want to admit it that China isn't a strategic partner after all. Even Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said on Meet the Press that it's clear that China is an "adversary" and "not a strategic partner." 4-25-01

English Language Controversy In UtahThe American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Utah is preparing to challenge a district court decision that properly found the state's new official English law constitutional. Utah voters approved the law as Initiative A on the ballot in last November's election. 4-18-01

Better Research About Drugs NeededA report just released by the National Research Council concludes that, although federal, state and local governments spent $30 billion in 1999 on illegal drug enforcement and treatment, the research is woefully inadequate to draw any conclusion about how to reduce demand or supply. In addition, U.S. taxpayers have spent $6.3 billion on drug education over the last ten years without any measurable effect. 4-11-01

Americans Need a Tax Cut NowDespite the Republicans enjoying a majority in all three branches of the federal government, the liberals seem to have a lock on debates about public policy because they are more skillful (or dishonest) in the use of words. The current controversy about tax cuts is a good example. 4-04-01

Bush Judicial Appointees Should Be Pro-ParentWhen President George W. Bush gets around to appointing federal judges, the issue of parental rights should be a major criterion. One model for what this means is contained in the principles recently outlined by the Wyoming Supreme Court. 3-28-01

Death Tax DeceptionCongressional Republicans have signaled that they are willing to compromise the death-tax provision of President Bush's tax-cut proposal. This offers a splendid opportunity to get it right. 3-21-01

Let's Encourage, Not Discourage, AllegianceBack in the olden days of the Cold War, a favorite sport of the liberals was to accuse conservatives of seeing imaginary spies and traitors under the bed. Who could have predicted that a real spy named Robert Hanssen and a traitor named Marc Rich would be dominating big- media headlines in 2001? 3-14-01

The Hidden Meaning Of Marriage Tax RepealRepeal of the marriage tax penalty was always good for a big round of applause in the campaign speeches of most political candidates last year. But it's scheduled for bumpy sledding in the drafting of this year's tax-cut bill. 3-07-01

What's At Stake In The New HHS Privacy Regs?In earlier, simpler times, medical privacy was no problem. Your doctor recorded the date of your visit and his diagnosis and prescriptions in his inimitable illegible handwriting and put it safely in a manila folder where only he or his nurse would ever see it and nobody else could possibly read it. 2-28-01

Kansas Dumbs Down Science to Promote EvolutionLiberals have long realized that, if they can win the battle over what is taught in schools, they will win elections. While they claim to believe in free speech, they often have little tolerance for alternate points of view in the schools. 2-14-01

California's Problems Not Just About PowerAlthough California decisively defeated a school voucher initiative on the ballot last November, its legislature may have done more to promote school choice than the defeated proposal could have done. Two controversial California state laws, enacted last year by a one-vote margin and effective on New Year's Day, mandate "diversity" teaching at all grade levels in order to promote tolerance of diverse sexual orientation. 2-07-01

A Warning From Denmark Since George W. Bush has put Social Security reform on his political agenda, it may be that immigration is now the third rail of politics. Before it becomes a subject that cannot be rationally debated, it is useful to take a good look at Denmark and the revealing report by Henrik Bering recently published in the Heritage Foundation's Policy Review. 1-31-01

Cui Bono in Vaccine MandateA recent issue of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association, 12-27-00) reports on a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study that supports the widespread policy of forcing all children to be vaccinated in order to enter daycare or school. It makes the unsurprising claim that unvaccinated children are more likely to get measles and pertussis than those who are vaccinated. 1-24-01

Assault On Ashcroft Spikes BipartisanshipIn an era when we have endured so much scandal, so much embarrassingly improper behavior by high public officials, one might have reasonably predicted that Senator John Ashcroft would be the least controversial of all George W. Bush's Cabinet nominations. Ashcroft has the cleanest record of any of the nominees. 1-17-01

A Conservative Agenda For 2001Since Bill Clinton stuck his finger in the eye of all who care about American sovereignty and constitutional rights by signing the International Criminal Court Treaty (ICC) on New Year's Eve, Congress should immediately pass Senator Jesse Helms's American Servicemembers' Protection Act. This will authorize the President to take any means necessary to protect U.S. service members from being subjected to any jurisdiction claimed by the ICC. 1-10-01

Separating Spin From Reality In Bush v. GoreAl Gore's supporters and their allies in the media continue to falsify the facts about Florida in order to try to delegitimize George W. Bush's election. To make sure that spin does not replace reality, let's examine some of these myths. 1-03-01